One of the holiest of Shiite Muslim shrines has been bombed in the Sunni-dominated Iraqi city of Samarra north of Baghdad. Explosions reportedly caused the collapse of the shrine’s two minarets. The 2006 bombing of the golden dome at the same shrine sparked the rampant sectarian strife in Iraq that continues today.
The latest carnage appears to be almost wholly sectarian—that is, Shiite versus Sunni—and linked to last month’s destruction of an important Shiite shrine. The single-day death tally of 87 follows a spate of weekend attacks that claimed 58 lives.